In the field of aircraft, visual inspections, pre-flight or during maintenance operations, form part of the periodic checks that ensure the operational safety of the aircraft.
Specifically, visual inspection makes it possible to detect anomalies that may arise in visible parts of the aircraft which are often those parts that are most exposed to external influences and, in some instances, may reveal deeper damage to the structure.
Furthermore, visual inspection does not require any particular dismantling, at the very most requiring the opening of doors or inspection hatches, which means that the inspection can be carried out relatively rapidly.
Historically, and still in widespread use even now, visual inspection has been performed by an operator on the ground, this operator for example being a technician or a pilot of the aircraft.
Inspection by an operator on the ground is performed in accordance with a check list, but the operator is free to inspect other elements or zones of the aircraft than those listed on the check list, particularly if indications lead him to take an interest in a particular zone, thereby making it possible to improve the detection of any potential anomalies.
On the other hand, an operator may be more or less attentive and may become distracted by observations that are not necessarily the most significant observations, at the risk of neglecting certain detailed information that ought to give him cause to make a more in-depth examination and perform an analysis.
In order to avoid the unpredictability of human intervention, it has been considered for visual inspections to be carried out automatically. For that, systems employing video cameras that are fixed with respect to the ground, for example in a hangar, or that are mobile and carried by robots moving over the ground or in flight, have been conceived of. Patent application WO2012/047479 illustrates one example of an automated airplane inspection device. The inspection of the airplane is assigned to a set of cameras that are fixed or able to move along the ground by means of rolling robots or able to move in flight by means of flying robots which are assigned to various parts of the airplane. The viewing means communicate with a remote computer center which processes the images received in order therefrom to deduce the presence of anomalies and determine what maintenance operations are to be carried out.
In such a system, the image processing and image interpretation are performed automatically which means that the checking operations can be performed without human intervention, the decision-making being assigned to the automatic system. While the unpredictabilities of a human operator are thus avoided, what is then lost is the benefit of the observation made by the operator who has a large capacity for interpretation, particularly when faced with new and uninventoried situations that may prove difficult to interpret. Furthermore, a device that carries out automatically tests that touch on matters of safety presents potential problems with certification because of the need to demonstrate the high degree of reliability of the system.